A new drone collaboration by Cessna owner Textron and autonomy provider Merlin Labs aims to offer the U.S. military a hot production line and a familiar platform for uncrewed aerial logistics, including in contested environments.

The product is SkyCourier UX, a drone version of the Cessna 408 SkyCourier that has flown for FedEx, foreign special operations forces and small remote commercial airlines during its six years of active service. TWZ previously covered how the SkyCourier would likely end up taking on military applications when it was first announced, which you can read here.

A partial full-size model on the show floor at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in Washington, D.C., this week showed a nose that opened with hydraulics to a cargo bay in lieu of a cockpit. We have seen this same front door conversion concept for uncrewed cargo-carrying helicopters as of late. This allows for easy loading of outsized cargoes without specialized equipment, according to the company, though it does not increase the payload. Like the original SkyCourier, it’s good for about 6,000 pounds, or three standard containers.

The form factor of the uncrewed SkyCourier variant is otherwise identical to its crewed counterpart, with twin turboprops, a high-wing configuration and an aluminum body. 

As with the base SkyCourier, a major advantage of the aircraft is its optimization for loading and carrying standard pallets. This means that cargoes don’t necessarily have to be downloaded, broken up and repackaged for movement to forward positions. This is a big logistical advantage and can speed the flow of critical supplies to where they are needed most. 

The aircraft’s range is about 900 nautical miles, which the makers say suits it well for Pacific island-hopping, allowing for refueling stops on austere runways. It can take off on runways as short as 3,300 feet and land in just 2,500 feet, according to a spec sheet.

The Textron/Merlin collaboration aims to differentiate itself with proven capability in the missions it intends to fulfill, along with the ability to roll out a new drone variant fast and one it can sustain consistently. Bob Gibbs, Textron’s vice president of special missions sales, told reporters in a Monday briefing that the conventional SkyCourier was now fulfilling new orders, not previously announced, to deliver modified aircraft to foreign nations for medical evacuation, casualty evacuation and environmental protection.

“The aircraft’s being operated literally from the Arctic to the Amazon,” Gibbs said. “There are three different island nations in the Pacific that have airline fleets of them. We support our aircraft in 170 countries around the world. So, just like a Cessna Caravan or a Beechcraft King Air, they’re ubiquitous. You find them anywhere, and we support them anywhere in the world.”

While the 900-mile range can’t take the loaded-up aircraft the nearly 2,000-mile stretch between the first and second island chains, Merlin and Textron executives said they don’t need to accomplish that to make it effective.

“This is the ability to disperse the forces among the second island chain … to do the island-hopping to be able to get to, whether it’s Palau, Tinian, Saipan, pick your various islands there,” Kyle Kremer, a retired Air Force major general who now advises Merlin, said. “With the range that it has, it has the ability to agilely move through there” and connect logistics pipelines.

The autonomy package, Merlin Pilot, is already in use under a $105 million U.S. Special Operations Command contract to develop autonomy for the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft. It’s been flown aboard four different single and multi-engine airframes, the company says. A promotional web page for Merlin Pilot shows tanker-class and commercial cargo applications with developing and future capabilities.

Merlin has also teamed with the Air Force to develop an AI copilot for KC-135 tankers that can decrease crew workload and even possibly fly the aircraft on its own in the future. TWZ reported on planned tests for these autonomy-enabled tankers in 2024, with the flights set to begin the following year.

However, the Air Force has not confirmed the completion of any flight tests for the effort since. And on Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, commander of Air Force Mobility Command, appeared to confirm that the tests had never taken place.

“There’s some companies out there who have offered to develop things where they can bring a carry-on kit onto old KC-135s and other aircraft, but we haven’t seen them test those successfully,” he said. 

He added that autonomy technology may lack the maturity needed for tanker missions.

“An optionally manned or an unmanned tanker at range, [at] the ranges we needed to operate at. It’s a very large aircraft, and we’re not yet to where we’re employing fully autonomous large aircraft. But the technology, I would say, is there and rapidly getting there,” he said.

Tulley did stress that the Air Force saw a need for unmanned aircraft in the last-tactical-leg delivery.

“I’m wrestling with that as we develop an AMC strategy,” he said. “There is absolutely room for some sort of autonomous or other small light lift capability, and that’s just one domain in the air, right? This could be by sea, could be by land, but there is absolutely some requirement for distribution from those major points of debarkation.”

In addition to autonomous takeoff, landing and navigation, and protection of the flight envelope, Merlin Pilot, the company says, has digital copilot human-machine teaming characteristics that include pilot health monitoring, gaze tracking and fatigue detection; pilot incapacitation and contingency response; and flight monitoring and assistance.

Some of Textron’s new features are making light steps toward autonomy already. Gibbs pointed out that the company’s Cessna Citation Gen3 business jets now include standard Garmin auto-land technology.

“Obviously, it’s a different scale than what Merlin’s doing as far as automation,” he said. “But … as we develop new products, we try to future-proof them, and so that’s where you get this nice transition between us.”

The SkyCourier can cost up to $8.5 million, depending on modifications, and while the SkyCourier UX sports GPS-denied navigation and the ability to seek different flight paths to avoid danger, it doesn’t have other built-in defenses. For contested logistics missions, it’s not clear how much risk the services are willing to tolerate for a relatively small logistics payload capability. Kremer maintained, though, that a drone of this size could be a mission-saving capability when dispatched to austere locations. And, in a Pacific conflict, it may reduce demand on already-stretched C-130 transports, now the smallest platform capable of carrying standard containers and long overtasked.

“If you can’t get the spare tire, if you can’t get the component, that small thing where you need it in these dispersed operations, they don’t keep the big logistic supply chain built up in these locations,” Kremer said. “You have to be able to get it where you need it, when you need it, and that’s what this provides.”

Nonetheless, the Air Force has a clear appetite for a capability like this. Last year, it signed a $17.5 million contract to put a Reliable Robotics autonomy package on a Cessna 208B Caravan. 

On Monday, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach reiterated the Air Force’s interest in unmanned aerial logistics platforms.

“We’re doing testing on them,” he said in response to an audience question. “We believe that there’s some value in that as well. It certainly could be valuable in the Pacific with the ranges that we’re talking about, and so we’re looking at several different options and evaluating them. But I would say nothing, no program of records just yet, but [we’re] certainly taking a look at some demonstrators and the like to see what’s available to us.”

Notably, China has made significant advancements in developing logistic drone capabilities, with reported successful flight tests of massive heavy-lift uncrewed aircraft, including a 7-ton cargo plane that’s currently the world’s largest uncrewed freighter to take flight. Among them is China’s CH-YH1000, a medium-altitude cargo drone developed by the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics that boasts, like SkyCourier UX, a hatch in lieu of a cockpit for ease of flat-pallet loading up to a weight of 1.2 tons. These are just some of an increasing number of similar systems being developed in China that aim to take the crew out of lower-end logistical missions over short, medium and long distances.

Though Textron and Merlin have yet to build a SkyCourier UX prototype, Merlin CEO Matt George emphasized that the company had chosen to partner with Textron because they could start delivering aircraft fast.

“You’ll see over the course of the show a lot of concept aircraft. You’ll see a lot of renders. You’ll see a lot of people who have big empty factories all around the country,” he said. “But I also want to be very clear about the fact that none of this matters without production … There’s 14,000 Americans working in Wichita, Kansas, on a production line where these aircraft, at least in the crewed configuration, are coming off the production line. So when we talk about capability, we’re talking about that capability and bringing that capability to bear soon, rather than in the future.”

Next in the development process, executives say, will be an optionally piloted version of SkyCourier that will allow users to develop comfort with the platform and open the door to further iteration. 

The Textron/Merlin team is also leaving its options open in terms of which U.S. military customer might find its platform most useful.

“I hope [the Army and Air Force] fight over it,” Gibbs said.

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

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After the U.S. lost dozens of its MQ-9 Reaper drones to fighting in Iran, newcomer drone-maker Swarm Aero announced Monday that it had developed a drone in the same medium altitude, long-endurance (MALE) class, capable of executing swarm missions and cheap enough to afford losing, even in large numbers. This comes as the USAF is looking for a cheap replacement for the Reaper, targeting just a fraction of the MQ-9’s cost, at $10M per copy.

Called Gamera, the new drone, built from a clean-sheet design, has a wingspan of about 72 feet, a payload capacity of 2,800 pounds, a “Pacific-spanning” unrefueled range of 9,000 miles and a combat radius of 2,300 miles with “hours” of on-station time once at its patrol area. Kitted-out Reapers, which reportedly cost $30-50 million apiece, have a payload capacity of up to 3,800 pounds. 

Meet Gamera, a new category of Group 5 strike and sensing UAS that we unveiled at @AFA_Air_Space's Air, Space & Cyber Conference today.

Mass-producible, significantly lower cost than legacy platforms, and the first UAS specifically designed to employ bomber-class strike… pic.twitter.com/UhT9bgcTPn

— Swarm Aero (@SwarmAero) September 14, 2026

A mockup unveiled at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in Washington, D.C., underscores the aircraft’s large wingspan and showcases its unique design that is built for cost efficiency, above all else. It features a single propeller, like the Reaper, a central fuselage and hardpoint, large fuel cells in sponsons on either side and an OV-10 Bronco-style twin-boom t-tail.

These general design choices were made for efficiency and practicality, Peter Kalogiannis, CEO of Swarm Aero, said in an interview on the show floor.

“The Bronco tail is really there to provide us that flexibility. So it allows us to use a variety of payloads, whether they’re released, whether they’re rocket-powered, and it really gives us it… it really sets into the flexibility goal here, which is we can carry a whole bunch of different payloads, whether they’re strike, whether they’re sensing,” he said. “And it’s also easy to manufacture, right? It’s straightforward, and that’s a design decision that again we’ve made everywhere across the design standpoint.”

Other modularity features include making the wings removable and separate from the fuel system (dry wing), the executive said, which increases efficiency in manufacturing.

Gamera’s native payload, according to the announcement, will be JASSM-ER cruise missiles, which have a plussed-up range of 600 miles. This payload, the company said, will deliver “comparable strike effects to exquisite systems for roughly one-tenth the cost-per-effect of existing platforms.”

The MQ-9 is in the process of integrating the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile and other missiles as compatible payloads in a move to turn the drones, which conventionally carry laser-guided Paveway bombs and Hellfire missiles, into more robust standoff “missile trucks.” 

Swarm Aero execs said the aircraft’s six other hardpoints beyond its centerline one allow it to carry many munitions and other payloads. Renderings of a number of configurations show the drone configured for direct strike with Hellfire/JAGM missiles, ISR support with podded sensing payloads, and even air-to-air missiles.

Swarm Aero’s unveiling comes after the Air Force announced its desire for what it’s calling a “Massed Modular Aircraft” – a MQ-9 successor at a fraction of the price point: $10 million per copy. 

Certain announced Gamera specs line up with the Air Force’s MMA wish list, which included a 2,800-pound payload capacity and an unrefueled combat radius of 2,300 nautical miles. 

“Built around a unique manufacturing approach, swarms of these Group 5 UAV give the U.S. Air Force the cost-effective force structure needed for their ultimate goals of surface strike, sensing, and other missions,” the company said in its announcement. “Their tremendous range and payload flexibility fill the gaps between ‘pulsing’ forces to provide highly persistent air dominance over vast areas.”

Oliver Palmer, Chief Revenue Officer and co-founder of Swarm Aero, said the unit cost of Gamera would come in under the $10 million target. While he declined to say by how much, he maintained that the offering for the Air Force’s Massed Modular Aircraft requirement would be “competitive.”

Kalogiannis said the clean-sheet and targeted approach was critical to achieving cost reduction.

“Low cost isn’t something that you kind of sprinkle on an existing design, an existing engineering system, even an existing organization,” he said. “You have to design the aircraft, design the company around that, and that’s what we’ve done. So every design decision we’ve made has been factoring in cost from the very beginning, and manufacturability and the ability to build these at scale.”

Though the company has been reticent about the main materials in Gamera, executives referred to the $10 million Air Force Research Lab contract the company is executing to develop metal composites. The company’s first engineering hire, they said, was a materials and process engineer.

“We’re demonstrating the progress there and kind of applying those technologies to real aerostructure development,” Kalogiannis said.

Expanding the picture is the drone’s swarming capability – the company says it’s most effective in “groups of up to 80,” powered by a Swarm Aero command-and-control and autonomy system called Legion. The system purports to let a single military operator or team direct a cluster of dozens of different uncrewed systems across multiple domains at the same time and has already been experimentally deployed by the Navy to direct air and sea drones.

The company, which was founded in 2022 and is based in northwest Arkansas, also noted that Legion has already been tapped by the Defense Innovation Unit as a C2 source for its Autonomous Collaborative Teaming program.

“At Swarm we’ve inverted conventional wisdom around air power platform design, manufacturing, and combat operations and introduced an affordable, mass-producible strike platform that will re-establish an asymmetric edge over our adversaries,” Palmer said in a statement. 

The Air Force has stressed its desire to develop Group 5 unmanned aerial systems akin to Reaper, emphasizing that attritability is not the same as expendability and the category lives between single-use weapons and more exquisite, higher-cost platforms.

The Air Force’s Reaper fleet is reportedly now around 135 units, down from a desired floor of 189, with dozens lost over Iran and Yemen in recent fighting. But the Air Force has only purchased up to 337 of the aircraft over the 19-year life of the program.

While the Air Force has said it wants at least 180 MMA units, Palmer suggested Gamera’s low price point and capabilities might push the service toward a higher acquisition target.

“Reaper was very specifically for terrorism, overhead surveillance and strike with very short ranges in uncontested airspace, and really not transiting massive distances to do those operations,” he said. “This is really intended more for long-range strike, and then also can do all of those MQ-9 sensing [and other] missions. It’s a different paradigm. So when we think about how you build out the force, how you size that, it’s really for long-range strike, and that really drives the program and the aircraft into a different direction.”

Just today at the Air & Space Forces Association’s conference, the USAF confirmed it plans to buy 500 MMAs by 2032. So the stakes are high, to say the least.

The Air Force’s quest for a less-expensive Reaper successor will clearly trigger a race to meet the requirement. Earlier this month, Reaper maker General Atomics unveiled Wildfire, a MALE drone developed from the MQ-9 that purports to deliver similar performance to its progenitor, with some key tradeoffs, at a lower cost. The company has been outspoken about how achieving Reaper’s full capabilities at a fraction of the cost will be an unrealistic challenge. General Atomics has yet to provide full specifics on if it will arrive under the $10 million target cost stipulated by the Air Force.

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

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